Navy Women’s 2018-19Basketball Schedule Announced

The Navy women’s basketball team announced on Thursday a challenging 29-game schedule for the 2018-19 season.

The Navy women’s team is coming off the winningiest season in program history and its second straight appearance in the WNIT after posting a 25-8 record and a 13-5 mark in Patriot League conference play. The Mids finished third in the Patriot League’s regular season standings and advanced to the title game of the league tournament for the second year in a row and fifth time in the last eight years. Additionally, Navy’s first round WNIT contest versus Virginia Tech was its third WNIT appearance in five years and sixth post-season trip in eight years. The Hokies edged the Mids by a slim 56-55 margin in Blacksburg on March 16.

The 2018-19 season will get underway for the Mids with a pair of home games over the opening week of play. On Wednesday, Nov. 7, Navy will welcome Catholic University (16-9, 7-7 Landmark Conference) to Alumni Hall for the first matchup between the local clubs since February 15, 1990. All-time, the Mids holds a 7-3 advantage over the Cardinals. Navy will close out the first week with a home tilt versus Marist College (20-14, 14-4 MAAC) on Sunday, Nov. 11. The Mids’ first opponent with 2017-18 postseason experience, the Red Foxes made the finals of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) tournament last season before competing in the WNIT postseason event where the team was defeated by St. John’s, 68-47. The Navy-Marist series is three games old with the Mids’ holding a 2-1 advantage courtesy of season-opening 77-70 win in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. last Nov. 10.

One week later Navy will hit the road for its first competition away from Alumni Hall as they cap a home-and-home series with Norfolk State (18-11, 11-5 MEAC) on Sunday, Nov. 18. One year after knocking off the Spartans, 70-51 in Annapolis, the Mids will look to push their all-time record to 2-0 this coming season.

The annual Navy Classic is next on the docket for the program as Alumni Hall will play host to top-flight action between Navy, Penn (22-9, 11-3 Ivy), North Carolina A&T (23-9, 15-1 MEAC) and Maine (23-10, 13-3 America East). On Saturday. Nov. 24, the Mids and Quakers will kick off the two-day event with a 1 p.m. showdown before the Aggies and Black Bears play at 3:15 p.m. The following day on Nov. 25, Navy and North Carolina A&T will go head-to-head in the 1 p.m. contest, while Maine and Penn play in game two at 3:15 p.m.

The Mids are 5-4 all-time against the Quakers with their most recent matchup being a 57-43 victory for Penn at home on Dec. 5, 2015. Navy’s all-time series with North Carolina A&T is five games old with Navy holding a 3-2 advantage. The Mids and Spartans’ last game versus each other was Nov. 22, 2015, a 52-48 Navy win. Both Penn and N.C. A&T played in the 2017-18 postseason as the Quakers went 1-1 in the WNIT Tournament, while the Aggies made the NCAA Tournament and were up to the challenge versus South Carolina before falling in the first round contest, 63-52.

A game in Lawrenceville, N.J. versus Rider University (14-17) on Sunday, Dec. 2 begins a run of four straight road games for Navy in December. The Mids are 4-0 all-time over the Broncs with a 63-44 victory on Nov. 12, 2017 being the teams’ most recent matchup.

A cross-country road trip to the state of Colorado dots the Mids’ calendar for the weekend of Dec. 7-9. First up will be the fourth matchup in four years between Navy and Air Force (6-25, 5-13 MWC) on Friday, Dec. 7. After defeating the Falcons, 71-64 in Annapolis on Nov. 22 last year, the Mids hold an 11-3 advantage all-time in the series. Navy has won each of the last seven matchups dating back to 2009.

Two days later on Sunday, Dec. 9, Navy and Colorado (15-16, 5-13 Pac-12) will go head-to-head for the first time in program history. This game will mark Navy’s fourth contest all-time versus a Pac-12 school and first since a 2014 matchup at Oregon.

Navy’s run of road games will conclude on Wednesday, Dec. 19 with a meeting in West Long Branch, N.J. against Monmouth University (10-21, 7-11 MAAC). The Mids and Hawks played each other last Nov. 30 in Annapolis and saw Navy come away with a 73-49 victory. Navy is 2-1 all-time versus Monmouth.

The final non-conference game of the regular season for Navy is a home tilt versus St. Joseph’s (19-15, 10-6 A10) on Monday, Dec. 31. Navy’s third matchup versus a 2017-18 WNIT participant in the 2018-19 non-conference will be the first-ever between the Mids and Hawks. St. Joseph’s went 1-1 in last season’s WNIT with a win over Seton Hall in the first round and a second round loss to West Virginia.

Navy will open its Patriot League schedule on the road on Thursday, Jan. 3 at Loyola. The team’s first home conference game will be on Sunday, Jan. 6 versus Lehigh. The Patriot League schedule will see all 10 conference foes play home-and-home series from Jan. 3 through March 6.

The 2019 Patriot League Tournament will run from March 9 through March 17 with an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament on the line for the victor. The higher-seeded team playing in the game will play host to each round of the 2019 Patriot League Tournament. Those games will be played March 9 (first round: #7 vs. #10, #8 vs. #9), March 11 (quarterfinals), March 14 (semifinals) and March 17 (final).

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